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<title>How Pandora Felt (After Opening the Box) by shallowness</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533394">How Pandora Felt (After Opening the Box)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallowness/pseuds/shallowness'>shallowness</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Scorpion (TV 2014)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode Tag, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:42:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533394</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallowness/pseuds/shallowness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Paige. Leaning against the door. After.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Paige Dineen/Walter O'Brien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>How Pandora Felt (After Opening the Box)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My take on the last scene of 2.01 ‘Satellite of Love’.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Well, now she knows.</p>
<p>Paige stops lying, stops moving, just stops. She leans against the door and gulps in air as if that’s going to help any with her heart rate and her nerve endings, and the thoughts and the feelings that are so much more complicated and simple than they were before tonight.</p>
<p>There is no way Paige is going to sleep tonight. No way. She knows it. Despite the fact that she should be tired after a long day spent saving 10 million people after months of quiet. With all that strain and the broken sleep from her recent nightmares about failure, her body should be ready to collapse. And it is, but it’s because she doesn’t trust her knees anymore. She thinks it’s the door that’s keeping her upright. Sleep and rest seem impossible.<br/>
<br/>
Now she knows what it feels like when Walter kisses her back.</p>
<p>It’s come after a full day of Walter’s company after months of nothing but work-related messages and bulletins from Cabe, a day of confession, of communicating, of supporting each other, of hearing Walter’s voice again – so close at times that she could feel his breath against her skin – and working with him, and thinking how much she’d missed it. How much she’d missed him.</p>
<p>Now she knows what it’s like when their breath intermingles.</p>
<p>She remembers how she felt after her first real teenage kiss. How she kept touching her lips in disbelief. This is so much bigger. Kisses that affected her far less than this led to bed in the past.</p>
<p>She isn’t going to turn around and go back into the garage to see if a second kiss could live up to this because she and Walter agreed. They’re going to be professional. They’re going to be friends. They’re going to carry on an even keel, curiosity satisfied. No more kissing. This is it.</p>
<p>But she lied about feeling nothing, because when Paige closes her eyes tonight in her bed, that kiss is about all she’s going to be able to think about. Not the frantic seconds of trying to get Walter clipped safely to her and the chute, not whether the team are ready, not even her business case, but how right it felt to kiss him, not to hold back.</p>
<p>But they agreed. And she’s got to stick to it.</p>
<p>Another deep breath in. Paige tells herself she can’t just stand here, and peels herself off the door. On unsteady legs, she makes her way to her car. She does not touch her lips.</p>
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